Run Away With Me
by elanev91
Summary: Sometimes the war is terrifying and Lily just wants to run.


**I'm still listening to Carly Rae Jepsen like it's my damn job. This is a deviation, but my depression needed the angst, so I fed the beast a little. Cute, right? How excited are you to read this now?**

 **I feel like I've probably written this story before. I also feel like I don't care.**

* * *

When she proposed it ('Run away with me'), she was only kind of asking. She was asking, begging, _pleading_ all in one. It was a joking suggestion and a very, _very_ serious proposition.

They were lying in his bed, her head on his chest, his heart thrumming under her ear, her fingers tracing complex patterns across his skin, and the words tumbled out of her before she'd really processed them, but they felt right and so she didn't take them back.

She'd been thinking about it lately anyway. It's probably about time that he knew.

He chuckled, his body vibrating under hers, and he turned, pressed a kiss into her hair, 'What?'

Things had been getting worse lately, so, _so_ much worse, and now they only had a month left and even though she didn't want to run away from everything (not really), it would be a lot easier.

Maybe they could be happy.

Probably not.

She shrugged, nuzzled her nose against his chest, hoped he'd let it drop when she said, 'Nevermind.'

'No,' James said, he still sounded amused as he turned onto his side to get a better look at her, and she groaned, pressed her face against his chest. James chuckled, pulled her shoulders back until she was facing him. He eyed her, his expression shifting from a light, amused one, to a concerned, serious one. It happened so quickly, in the moment that he'd properly laid eyes on her, that she would have missed it if she hadn't watched it happen.

He reached out, brushed a piece of hair out of her eyes, ran his thumb along her cheek, 'What's wrong?'

There was nothing wrong, not immediately - they were lying in his bed, skin to skin, tired, satisfied, warm, _safe_ \- but -

 _But._

They wouldn't be here forever, they would eventually have to leave, would have to put themselves at risk - she would have to worry every day that that might be the day that one of them doesn't come home. They would lose people, they _would._ It wasn't a matter of if, so much as it was of who and when and how, and she knew that she and James were on the list of potential losses, probably higher than most. He'd already had "an altercation" with some Death Eaters over the summer, they'd _both_ been recruited earlier this year, something that still, months later, boiled her blood so much that she could barely stand it. He, like fucking Snape, had acted like she was the exception to the rule, like she should be _thankful._ He should be thankful that Lily didn't beat him to death with her bare hands, that James was there to stop her, because otherwise…

Things were fine as long as they could keep pretending. As long as they didn't let themselves linger over the _Daily Prophet_ in the morning, as long as they let Sirius talk them into sneaking to Hogsmeade, drowning the day in a round or two or six. But when things were quiet, and her mind wandered, she couldn't help but let it all back in. Though she wasn't letting it in so much as letting her walls drop, letting everything that was already there flood through her mind and remind her of the state of things.

She had dirty blood in her veins and a target on her back. That wasn't something that she was ever going to forget.

And when she remembered, she wanted to run, her gut screamed at her to run, to turn, take James, and just fucking _leave._ She didn't know where they would go, had never thought far enough ahead, but she knew that staying in Britain was essentially signing their own death warrant and she was fine if it was just her (not happy, but fine), but James? She couldn't bring James into this, not on her behalf.

He was going to fight anyway, she'd always known that he would, from the moment that things started getting worse in fifth year. He'd never been quiet about his disdain for everything they stood for, never let a comment slide without saying something, was always, _always_ fighting. She knew that he was going to fight, he'd said so (loudly and often) once everything moved out into the open, but this, being with her… it was different. It _was_ different and she knew it and she suspected that he knew it too, but he just didn't care.

She didn't care either, not really. She wasn't going to leave him over this, partially because she knew he'd never have it, but mostly because she didn't want to. She wasn't going to leave him, let the bastards have that kind of control over her life, but they could leave Britain, and sometimes that's all that she wanted, more than anything else in the world. To run anywhere else. To be safe _anywhere_ else.

She shifted closer, moved her hand between them, wound it into the hair at the back of his neck. 'I'm just being stupid,' she said, but James was shaking his head from the moment 'just' had left her lips. 'No,' he said, and his hand moved from her cheek, to her hip, pulled her closer to him, 'it's not stupid. Talk to me.'

She forced out another breath, her heart hammering with anxiety, curled her fingers tighter in his hair, 'I - ' and something broke in her and then she couldn't stop, 'Sometimes I just want to leave. I don't want to sit here and wait for them to come and kill us, I want to leave and go somewhere where I won't have to worry that one day I'm going to walk out of our door and it's going to be the last time that I ever see you. I'm tired of being afraid, I'm tired of worrying about which fucking one of us is going to go first, and I'm just so fucking tired, James, and I don't want to _do_ this anymore.'

She wasn't sure what she expected James to say, didn't know what she thought he was going to do, but when he leaned forward, eyes shut tight, and pressed his forehead to hers, breathed, 'I know,' she knew that this was what she'd wanted, this acceptance, acknowledgement, the absent reassurances, and she couldn't have stopped the tears that fell then even if she'd wanted to. She pressed her forehead harder against his, pushed herself into him, let her breath come in waves, let it wash over her, let it tug every last feeling out of her until there was nothing left.

'We could,' he said, and he pulled back, buried his hand in her hair again. His eyes were frantic as they bore into hers, just around the edges, but it was there. 'We could leave,' he said again, running his hand down her neck, over her shoulder, and she knew that he was trying to convince himself as much as her, 'we - '

'No,' she said, and even though it was quiet, James fell silent at once, his eyes moving rapidly over her face, the panic spreading just a bit further into his eyes as he studied her. 'We - James, you _know_ we can't,' she couldn't tell if she sounded brave or stupid or resigned or what, but James pressed his fingers into her hip again and she figured that it was a combination.

'I don't really want to anyway, I don't know what I'm even on about.'

He shook his head at her. 'Don't do that,' he said, and he was so fucking earnest about it that she thought her heart was going to shatter under the weight of it, 'Don't act like you're just being ridiculous, Evans, you're - you're alright to feel this. And I know that you're going to disagree, but we _can_ leave. We can. We don't have to stay, we don't _have_ to do this.'

Now that the option was on the table, really on the table, she knew the answer. She hated the answer, but it was the only direction that she knew she'd feel comfortable taking. The only real choice available to her. 'Would you ever be alright with the fact that we left? Because I wouldn't.'

He sighed, 'We can't let our fucking _pride_ decide this, Lily.'

She smirked, the gesture making her feel just a touch lighter, 'Bit rich, coming from you.'

He breathed a laugh, and the smile tugging at the corners of his lips temporarily lit up his face before he settled again, his expression serious, 'Lily, I just - we _do_ have a choice. You know that.'

'I know,' she said, and she sighed again, 'but we've already chosen, haven't we?'

He nodded, gaze locked on hers, 'I suppose we have.'

He trailed his fingers up and down her side, his touch barely more than a breath against her skin; his eyes fell closed again and he leaned forward, pressed a kiss to her forehead. She sighed, slipped one of her legs through his, moved closer, pressed her nose against his neck, let herself breathe him in.

They were quiet again, their breathing the only sound in the room for a long time. The longer she laid there, the more her body evened out - her thoughts stopped racing, her heart stopped hammering violently in her chest, her breathing became slower, steadier, fuller. They hadn't fixed anything, hadn't made any changes, hadn't miraculously managed to stop Voldemort by lying in James' bed and talking about how terrified she was… everything was still the same, and yet, it wasn't. They hadn't fixed anything, but she'd finally talked about it. It hadn't changed anything, but it had helped.

She wasn't sure how long she'd been lying there when she pulled back and let her eyes find his again.

'I just get into these… not moods, exactly, but I don't know what else to call them,' she said, and it was good that James was so close because he wouldn't have been able to hear her otherwise, 'It just feels like everything, the reality of it all, you know? Like it all just gets into my head and makes me feel like we're just fucking doomed and I can't shake it. I know that leaving would probably be the smarter option, you know, if I'm honest about it, but I'm - I don't want to leave. But then my head fills up with all this shit and it just feels… like why even bother, we're all probably going to be killed in this anyway.'

His forehead creased and she tipped her head in acknowledgement, 'I know. It's not exactly the happiest train of thought.' She breathed a laugh, but James just studied her, his eyes tracing her features. She sighed, 'I'm just scared, that's all. Fucking terrified, actually. But I can't - I can't let people die and do _nothing._ '

'Me neither,' James said, and his fingers tightened just a bit on her hip before they loosened again, trailed back up her side, 'We don't really have a choice.'

'No,' she said, 'we do. You were right.'

She saw the ghost of a smile flit across James' face, 'I was right?' She bit her lip to keep from smiling and James smiled in earnest now, pulled her closer, 'Mind saying that again so I can commit it to memory?'

'You're an idiot,' she said instead, and he laughed, leaned forward and dropped one, two kisses to her lips, 'There's my Evans.'

She chuckled, rolled her eyes at him, 'Yeah, yeah, Potter.'

He reached out, tucked a piece of hair back behind her ear, and though his face became serious again, it was lighter than before. 'You don't have to hold this in,' he said, 'I want you to talk to me about this stuff. About everything.'

'I didn't hold this in - '

'Evans, I'm serious.'

'No,' she said, trying to look confused in spite of the smile on her lips, 'you're James.'

He raised a stern eyebrow, 'Evans.'

She breathed a laugh, 'I know, Potter. I just don't know what to do with you when you're being serious.'

'Well, too bad,' he said, smiling and pulling her into him again, 'because I fucking mean it. I'm here for you. And you can make all the awkward jokes you want about that as long as you know that I'm serious." He leaned back, raised an eyebrow at her, waiting for her to make a joke. She smiled, but managed to restrain herself, and nodded.

'Yeah,' she said, leaning forward and pressing a kiss at the base of his neck, 'I know. I'm here for you, too.'

'Good,' he said, and he shifted a bit so that he could bury his face in her hair.

James' breathing slowed after a few minutes, became smooth, steady, and deep. Feeling his chest expanding against hers, his breath against her hair, and, if she pressed her palm in just the right spot, his heart thrumming underneath his ribs… they were quiet signs that he was alive, that they were okay, that they were safe. At least for now.

She supposed that she could take for now.


End file.
